Library lesson booklet

Year 7 Spring Term

Name:……………………………..
Teacher:………………………….

This booklet is designed to help you better understand the ideas you will find in your
English lessons. It will also help you in other aspects of your learning, as many ideas
about the world we live in are explored in these lessons. This is called cultural capital.
You will spend half of your library lessons on this booklet, and half on your DEAR silent
reading.

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1. Roald Dahl was born in Llandaff, Cardiff, in 1916.
His Norwegian parents Harald Dahl and Sofie
Magdalene Dahl named him after the explorer
Roald Amundsen.

2. At the age of three, Roald's seven-year-old

sister Astri died, just weeks before his father
succumbed to pneumonia at the age of 57. Harald
wanted his children educated in British schools,
so Sofie remained in the country to bring up her
six children.

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 3. At the age of nine Roald was sent to the Cathedral School in Llandaff, which was
a largely unhappy time. Thereafter he was sent to a series of private schools,
where he developed interests in literature and photography.

4. Although his mother expected him to attend university, after school he joined
the Shell oil company, where from 1938 he worked in the east African republic
of Tanganyika (later Tanzania). During World War Two he served as a fighter
pilot, a period documented in another autobiography, Going Solo (1986).

5. A near fatal crash in north Africa in September 1940, during which he was sent
into no-man's land by accident, inspired Dahl's first published short story, Shot
Down Over Libya (1942). He also served in Greece and Syria, ending the war as a
Wing Commander.

6. He began writing after being transferred to Washington as an Assistant Air

Attaché, and was soon published by the Saturday Evening Post. However, he was
to find greater success as a children's author, with early popular titles including
James And The Giant Peach (1961), Charlie And The Chocolate Factory (1964),
Fantastic Mr Fox (1970) and Danny The Champion Of The World (1975)

Questions:

Read paragraph 1-2

1. Name two reasons that the Dahl family stayed in Britain. [2]

Read paragraph 3-4

2. Name two things that Dahl did after he left school. [2]

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Read the rest of the biography
3. What year did Dahl publish is first short story? [1]

4. Where did he work after the war? [1]

Dahl’s Experience of Flying School in Nairobi, Africa (From Going Solo)

“There were sixteen of us altogether learning to fly in this Initial Training School in
Nairobi, and I liked every one of my companions. They were all young men like me who
had come out from England to work for some large commercial concern, and who had
now volunteered for flying duties. It is a fact, and I verified it carefully later, that out
of those sixteen, no fewer than thirteen were killed in the air within the next two
years. In retrospect, one gasps at the waste of life.

At the aerodrome we had three instructors and three planes. The instructors were civil
airline pilots borrowed by the RAF from a small domestic company called Wilson
Airways. The planes were Tiger Moths. The Tiger Moth is a thing of great beauty.
Everybody who has ever flown a Tiger Moth has fallen in love with it. You could throw
one about all over the sky and nothing ever broke. You could spin her vertically
downwards for thousands of feet and then all she needed was a touch on the rudder-
bar, a bit of throttle and the stick pushed forward and out she came in a couple of
flips. A Tiger Moth had no vices. She never dropped a wing if you lost flying speed
coming in to land, and she would suffer innumerable heavy landings from incompetent
beginners without turning a hair.

There was only one runway on the little Nairobi aerodrome and this gave everyone
plenty of practice at crosswind landings and take-offs. And on most mornings, before
flying began, we all had to run out on the airfield and chase the zebra away.

After I had gone solo, I was allowed to go up alone for much of the time and it was
wonderful. In the Great Rift Valley the big game and smaller game were as plentiful as
cows on a dairy farm, and I flew low in my little Tiger Moth to look at them. Oh, the
animals I saw every day from that cockpit! I would fly for long periods at a height of no
more than sixty or seventy feet, gazing down at huge herds of buffalo and wildebeest
which would stampede in all directions as I whizzed over. I flew over the pink flamingos

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on Lake Nakuru and I flew all the way round the snow summit of Mount Kenya. What a
fortunate fellow I am, I kept telling myself.”

Read Paragraph 1
How do we know flying was a dangerous thing to do during the war? (1)

Read Paragraph 2:
2. Name three reasons that Dahl fell in love with the Tiger Moth plane. (3)

Read Paragraph 3-4:

How does the writer show us that flying in Nairobi was different to Britain? (1)

Name three different types of wildlife that the writer saw. (3)

Going Solo: The Snake-Man

The green mamba snake, which is also known as Dendroaspis viridis, is glossy grass-
green in color with light bright green underside and averages 1.8 meters or 5.9 feet in
length. The longest green mamba snake recorded was 3.7 meters or 12 feet in length.
The green mamba snake lives in the forests of southeastern African near the coast
stretching from the Eastern Cape in South Africa through Mozambique, Tanzania,
Kenya, Southern Malawi and Eastern Zimbabwe. This venomous snake can be found
living in the trees of the African forest and is rarely ever found on the forest ground
unless following prey or basking. If bitten by a green mamba, the venom can be fatal
within 30 mins!

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List five things you learn about the green mamba snake:

Roald Dahl has just come back for the evening to his home in Tanzania. As he
arrives he finds that his neighbour has found a green mamba in his house. They
have called a mysterious ‘snake-man’ to try and capture the deadly snake.

What the snake did next was so fast that the whole movement couldn’t have taken
more than a hundredth of a second, like the flick of a camera shutter. There was a
green flash as the snake darted forward at least ten feet and struck the snake-man’s
leg. Nobody could have got out of the way of that one. I heard the snake’s head strike
against the thick cowhide boot with a sharp little crack, and then at once the head was
back in that same deadly backwards-curving position, ready to strike again.

‘There’s a good boy’ the snake-man said softly. ‘There’s a clever boy There’s a lovely
fellow. You mustn’t get excited. Keep calm and everything’s going to be all right’.

As he was speaking, he was slowly lowering the end of the pole until the forked prongs
were about twelve inches above the middle of the snake’s body. ‘There’s a lovely fellow’
he whispered. ‘There’s a good kind little chap. Keep still now, my beauty. Keep still my
pretty. Keep quite still. Daddy’s not going to hurt you.’

I could see a thin dark trickle of venom running down the snake-man’s right boot where
the snake had struck.

The snake, head raised and arching backwards, was as tense as a tight-wound spring and
ready to strike again.

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Then wham, the rubber prongs came down right across the snakes’ body, about midway
along its length, and pinned it to the floor. All I could see was a green blur as the snake
thrashed around furiously in an effort to free itself. But the snake-man kept up the
pressure on the prongs and the snake was trapped.

What happened next? I wondered. There was no way he could catch hold of that madly
twisting flailing length of green muscle with his hands, and even if he could have done
so, the head would surely have flashed around and bitten him in the face.

Holding the very end of the eight-foot pole, the snake-man began to work his way
around the room until he was at the tail end of the snake. Then, in spite of the flailing
and the thrashing, he started pushing the prongs forward along the snake’s body
towards the head. Very very slowly he did it, pushing the prongs over the snake’s
flailing body, keeping the snake pinned down at all times and pushing, pushing, pushing
the long wooden rod forward millimetre by millimetre. It was a fascinating and
frightening thing to watch, the little man with the white eyebrows and black hair
carefully manipulating his long implement and sliding the fork ever so slowly along the
length of the twisting snake towards the head. The snake’s body was thumping against
the coconut mat with such a noise that if you had been upstairs you might have thought
to big men were wrestling on the floor.

Then at last the prongs were right behind the head itself. At that point the snake-man
reached forward with one gloved hand and grasped the snake very firmly by the neck.
He took the sack with his free hand and lifted the great still twisting length of deadly
green snake and pushed the head into the sack. Then he let go of the head and bundles
the rest into the sack.

He turned to look towards the window where we were peering in.

‘Pity about the dog,’ he said ‘You’d better get it out of the way before the children see
it.’

How does the writer show that the snake is dangerous?

You can comment on:

-What is said
-How it said

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 1) What are we told about the snake that makes it sound
dangerous? Include up to four quotations:
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2) Now explain why those words and phrases make the snake seem
dangerous. What images do the words create? How do you feel about
those images?
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 I am Malala

I remember climbing into the bus. After that it was all a bit hazy. I remember
that the inside of the bus was hot and sticky. The cooler days were late coming
and only the faraway mountains of the Hindu Kush had a frosting of snow. The
back where we sat had no windows, just thick plastic sheeting at the sides which
flapped and was too yellowed and dusty to see through. All we could see was a
little stamp of open sky out of the back and glimpses of the sun, at that time of
day a yellow orb floating on the dust that streamed over everything.

I remember that the bus turned right off the main road at the army checkpoint
as always and rounded the corner past the deserted cricket ground. I don’t
remember any more.

In my dreams about the shooting my father is also in the bus and he is shot with
me, and then there are men everywhere and I am searching for my father.
In reality what happened was we suddenly stopped. On our left was the tomb of
Sher Mohammed Khan, the finance minister of the first rule of Swat (an area of
Pakistan), all overgrown with grass, and on our right the snack factory. We must
have been less than 200 metres from the checkpoint.

We couldn’t see in front, but a young bearded man in light coloured clothes had
stepped into the road and waved the van down.

‘Is this the Khushal School bus?’ he asked our driver. The driver thought this
was a stupid question as the name was painted on the side. ‘Yes’ he said.

‘I need information about some children,’ said the man.

‘You should go to the office’ said the driver.

As he was speaking another young man in white approached the back of the van.
‘Look it’s one of those journalists coming to ask for an interview,’ said Moniba.
Since I’d started speaking at events with my father to campaign for girls’

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education and against those like the Taliban who want to hide us away,
journalists often came, even foreigners, though not like this in the road.

The man was wearing a peaked cap and had a handkerchief over his nose and
mouth as if he had the flu. He looked like a college student. Then he swung
himself onto the tailboard at the back and leaned right over us.

‘Who is Malala?’ he demanded.

No one said anything but several of the girls looked at me. I was the only girl
with my face not covered.

That’s when he lifted up a black pistol. I later learned it was a Colt 45. Some of
the girls screamed. Moniba tells me I squeezed her hand.

My friends say that he fired three shots, one after another. The first went
through my left eye socket and out under my left shoulder. I slumped forward
onto Moniba, blood coming out of my left ear, so the other two bulets hit the
girls next to me. One bullet went into Shazia’s left hand. The third went
through her left shoulder into the upper right arm of Kaniat Riaz.

My friends later told me the gunman’s hand was shaking as he fired.

By the time we got to the hospital my long hair and Moniba’s lap were full of
blood.

Who is Malala? I am Malala and this is my story.

How does Malala Yousafzai present her experience in this extract?

You should comment on:

-What is said
-How it is said
-Your reaction to her experience

1) Choose up to 4 quotations which you think clearly show what her

experience was like. Write them here:

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2) Write your answer, including the quotations, explaining what she says,
how she says it and what you think or feel about what she says:
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How ‘great’ was the ‘Greatest Showman’?

In Hugh Jackman's all-singing, all-dancing
film ‘The Greatest Showman’, the actor stars
as American circus owner P.T. Barnum .

Barnum was not just a legendary entertainer,

he was also a master of promotion and spin.

He once led 21 elephants across the Brooklyn

Bridge to prove it was safe – and because it
was priceless publicity for his circus.

But The Greatest Showman has also drawn

criticism for sugar-coating Barnum's story.
Away from the spotlight Barnum had a dark
side more shocking than any of his 'freak
show' attractions.

Many of his human and animal stars had lives that were far from wonderful.

Barnum treated some of his human attractions little better than the animals.

Zip the Pinhead, also billed as 'The What Is It?', was a dwarf with a disease
called microcephaly, which caused his head to taper at the top.

Zip was dressed in a furry suit, kept in a cage with monkeys, and ordered to
screech and rattle the bars.

Barnum told punters he was the missing link between man and ape, captured in
Africa.

In reality Zip was born William Henry Johnson in New Jersey to poor African-
American parents who accepted money from the circus master in order to feed
their five other children.

Questions:

1. How did Barnum try to prove the Brooklyn Bridge was safe? (1)

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2. What does the phrase ‘sugar-coated mean’? (1)

3. What disease did Zip have? What were the symptoms? (2)

4. Name three things that Barnum made Zip do to entertain people (3)

5. Why did Zip need the money he earned from the circus? (1)

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 “I first saw the light on the 5th of August, 1860, I was born in Lee Street,
Wharf Street, Leicester. The deformity which I am now exhibiting was caused
by my mother being frightened by an Elephant; my mother was going along the
street when a procession of Animals were passing by, there was a terrible crush
of people to see them, and unfortunately she was pushed under the Elephant's
feet, which frightened her very much; this occurring during a time of pregnancy
was the cause of my deformity.

The measurement around my head is 36 inches, there is a large substance of

flesh at the back as large as a breakfast cup, the other part in a manner of
speaking is like hills and valleys, all lumped together, while the face is such a
sight that no one could describe it. The right hand is almost the size and shape
of an Elephant's foreleg, measuring 12 inches round the wrist and 5 inches
round one of the fingers; the other hand and arm is no larger than that of a girl
ten years of age, although it is well proportioned. My feet and legs are covered
with thick lumpy skin, also my body, like that of an Elephant, and almost the
same colour, in fact, no one would believe until they saw it, that such a thing
could exist. It was not perceived much at birth, but began to develop itself
when at the age of 5 years.

I went to school like other children until I was about 11 or 12 years of age, when
the greatest misfortune of my life occurred, namely - the death of my mother,
peace to her, she was a good mother to me; after she died my father broke up
his home and went to lodgings; unfortunately for me he married his landlady;
henceforth I never had one moment's comfort, she having children of her own,
and I not being so handsome as they, together with my deformity, she was the
means of making my life a perfect misery; lame and deformed as I was, I ran, or
rather walked away from home two or three times, but suppose father had some
spark of parental feeling left, so he induced me to return home again. The best
friend I had in those days was my father's brother, Mr. Merrick, hair Dresser,
Church Gate, Leicester.

When about 13 years old, nothing would satisfy my step-mother until she got me
out to work; I obtained employment at Messrs. Freeman's Cigar Manufacturers,
and worked there about two years, but my right hand got too heavy for making
cigars, so I had to leave them.

I was sent about the town to see if I could procure work, but being lame and
deformed no one would employ me; when I went home for my meals, my step-

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mother used to say I had not been to seek for work. I was taunted and sneered
at so that I would not go home for my meals, and used to stay in the streets
with an hungry belly rather than return for anything to eat, what few half-meals
I did have, I was taunted with the remark – ‘That's more than you have earned.’

Being unable to get employment my father got me a pedlar's license to hawk the
town, but being deformed, people would not come to the door to buy my wares.
In consequence of my ill luck my life was again made a misery to me, so that I
again ran away and went hawking on my own account, but my deformity had
grown to such an extent, so that I could not move about the town without having
a crowd of people gather around me. I then went into the infirmary at
Leicester, where I remained for two or three years, when I had to undergo an
operation on my face, having three or four ounces of flesh cut away; so thought
I, I'll get my living by being exhibited about the country. Knowing Mr. Sam Torr,
Gladstone Vaults, Wharf Street, Leicester, went in for Novelties, I wrote to
him, he came to see me, and soon arranged matters, recommending me to Mr.
Ellis, Bee-hive Inn, Nottingham, from whom I received the greatest kindness
and attention.
In making my first appearance before the public, who have treated me well -- in
fact I may say I am as comfortable now as I was uncomfortable before. I must
now bid my kind readers adieu.”

What are your thoughts and feelings towards the writer’s experience? How
does the writer create these thoughts and feelings?

1) Decide what your thoughts and feelings are about the writer’s
experience:

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 2) Now choose up to four quotations which have made you feel that way
and explain why they make you feel that way. Which words? Why?

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Orcas are highly intelligent, highly adaptable and able to communicate and
coordinate hunting tactics. They are extremely fast swimmers and have been
recorded at speeds of up to 54kph! A wild orca pod can cover over 160
kilometres a day, foraging and socialising.

Looking at all populations, orcas are generalist eaters, consuming fish, seals and
sea lions, dolphins and porpoises, sharks and rays, large whales, cephalopods
(octopods and squids), seabirds and more. However, some orcas specialise on
specific prey, and it turns out orcas are picky eaters! Once they’ve learned what
their family eats, they aren’t likely to switch diets.

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In orca populations, knowledge is passed down to younger individuals from their
elders – what to eat and were to find it, how to catch it, who to avoid,
vocalisations and calls unique to pods and family groups, and the distinct ‘accent’
of the population. Having multiple prey items to choose from probably led to the
niche specialisations we see today – millions of year ago, different groups
started eating different things to avoid competing for the same food. Now
these groups are genetically different, in addition to their unique appearance
and cultures.

List five things that you find out about killer whales:

SeaWorld® opened its gates for the first time in 1964, founded by George
Millay, Milt Shedd, Ken Norris and David DeMott. Originally planned as an
underwater restaurant, the concept grew into a marine zoological park on 21
acres along the shore of Mission Bay in San Diego. With an initial investment of
$1.5 million, 45 employees, several dolphins, sea lions, and two saltwater
aquariums, SeaWorld drew more than 400,000 visitors its first year.
Today, there are three SeaWorld parks in the U.S., including the original San
Diego, Calif. location, and parks in Orlando, Fla. and San Antonio, Texas. We also
created more parks that connect guests with marine life in new ways. The
exclusive Discovery Cove® in Orlando is a tropical oasis where guests can swim
with dolphins and other sea life. Aquatica SeaWorld’s Waterpark™, with

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locations in Orlando, San Antonio and San Diego, combines water park thrills,
nature and animals for a unique family experience. The parks' up-close animal
encounters, educational attractions and innovative entertainment are designed
to inspire guests of all ages to celebrate, connect with and care for the natural
world around them.

List five things that you find out about killer whales:

Is it finally time to stop keeping orcas in captivity?

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For the last few years there has been a torrent of stories of captive orcas
suffering severe health problems, and in some cases attacking and even killing
their trainers.

Many of these stories have focused on an orca called Tilikum, who lives at
SeaWorld Orlando in Florida. Tilikum has been involved in three deaths during
his time in captivity.

SeaWorld has now announced that Tilikum's health appears to be deteriorating,

possibly due to a bacterial infection in his lungs.

In response, conservation groups are once again calling for an end to the
practice of keeping orcas, and other large marine mammals, in captivity. Are
they right?

Captive orcas have long been a controversial subject, but an incident in 2010
dragged them into the limelight.

In front of a crowd of visitors, Tilikum dragged his trainer Dawn Brancheau

under the water and killed her. He had previously been part of a group of three
orcas that drowned a trainer in 1991, and in 1999 he apparently drowned a man
who was trespassing in the park.

The 2010 killing initially sparked headlines around the world expressing shock,
and calling for Tilikum to be put down.

But others, especially marine mammal scientists, were not only sympathetic to
Tilikum: they blamed his keepers. The 2013 documentary Blackfish argued that
his violent outbursts were directly brought on by the stressful conditions of his
captivity.

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In line with this, several decades of observation show that orcas are not
naturally violent towards humans. There are no recorded cases of a wild orca
killing a human.

"In captivity, we force this artificial proximity to human beings, so the orcas do
act out once in a while and kill you," says marine mammal scientist Naomi Rose of
the Animal Welfare Institute in Washington, DC. "They are too large to be kept
in captivity."

Orcas (Orcinus orca) are also known as killer whales, but they are actually
dolphins, not whales – although both whales and dolphins belong to the same
group, the cetaceans.

The practice of taking them into captivity started in the 1960s. Orcas were
caught as juveniles and moved into tanks, ready to be trained to perform tricks
for our entertainment.

According to the charity Whale and Dolphin Conservation, at least 150 orcas
have been taken into captivity since 1961. SeaWorld has not captured a wild
orca for 35 years, instead breeding them in captivity. But elsewhere orcas are
still captured: in Russia 14 have been caught since 2002.

Today 56 orcas remain in captivity, part of a total of 2,000 captive

dolphins, according to the Change for Animals Foundation.

Clearly, living in captivity is a far cry from the orcas' natural world. Many
researchers now argue that captivity does not come close to addressing their
main needs.

How does the writer persuade the reader that keeping killer whales in
captivity is a bad thing?

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You should comment on:

 what they say to influence readers;

 their use of language and tone;

1) Things that the writer says (their points) to make us think it is a bad thing (choose
up to four):
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2) Specific words or phrases which persuade you to agree that it is a bad thing.
Why do they persuade you?
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SeaWorld: The Truth Is in Our Parks and People

An Open Letter from SeaWorld’s Animal Advocates

Inaccurate reports recently have generated questions about SeaWorld and the animals
in our care. The truth is in our parks and people, and it’s time to set the record
straight.

The men and women of SeaWorld are true animal advocates. We are the 1,500
scientists, researchers, veterinarians, trainers, marine biologists, aquarists,
aviculturists, educators and conservationists who have dedicated our lives to the
animals in our care as well as those in the wild that are injured, ill or orphaned.
Whether it’s a sea lion, manatee, sea turtle or whale, we are on call 24/7.

Here are some important facts about SeaWorld and our work:

SeaWorld does not capture killer whales in the wild. Due to the groundbreaking success
of our research in marine mammal reproduction, we haven’t collected a killer whale from
the wild in 35 years. In fact, only two of the whales in our care were collected by
SeaWorld and they continue to be in our care today. In addition, our research has led
to a much greater understanding of whales in the wild, giving researchers important
scientific insights surrounding marine mammal reproduction.

We do not separate killer whale moms and calves. SeaWorld recognizes the important
bond between mother and calf. On the rare occasion that a mother killer whale cannot
care for the calf herself, we have successfully hand raised and reintroduced the calf.
Whales are only moved to maintain a healthy social structure.

SeaWorld invests millions of dollars in the care of our killer whales. In the last three
years alone, we have invested $70 million in our killer whale habitats and millions of

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dollars annually in support of these facilities. Our habitats are among the largest in the
world today. They are state-of-the-art, multimillion-gallon environments of cooled and
filtered water that allow for the highest and safest standards of care. We give our
animals restaurant-quality fish, exercise, veterinary care, mental stimulation, and the
company of other members of their species.

SeaWorld’s killer whales’ life spans are equivalent with those in the wild. While studies
continue to define the average life span of killer whales in the wild, the most recent
science suggests that our killer whales’ life spans are comparable — indeed, five of our
animals are older than 30, and one of our whales is close to 50.

The killer whales in our care benefit those in the wild. We work with universities,
governmental agencies and NGOs to increase the body of knowledge about and the
understanding of killer whales — from their anatomy and reproductive biology to their
auditory abilities. Some populations of wild killer whales have been classified as
endangered or threatened, demonstrating the potential critical nature of these
research opportunities. This type of controlled research and study is simply not
possible in the wild, and has significant real-world benefits to the killer whales that live
there.

SeaWorld is a world leader in animal rescue. The millions of people who visit our parks
each year make possible SeaWorld’s world-renowned work in rescue, rehabilitation and
release. We are constantly innovating when it comes to this care: Our veterinarians
have created nursing bottles to hand-feed orphaned whales, prosthetics to save sea
turtles, and a wetsuit to help injured manatees stay afloat during rehabilitation.
Whether it’s the result of natural or man-made disasters, SeaWorld is always on call
and often the first to be contacted. We have rescued more than 23,000 animals with
the goal of treating and returning them to the wild.

Naturalist Baba Dioum put it best when he said, “In the end we will conserve only what
we love; we will love only what we understand; and we will understand only what we have
been taught.”

At SeaWorld, this has been our calling since we first opened our doors 50 years ago. It
is a responsibility we do not take lightly. More than 400 million guests have visited
SeaWorld. We are proud that their experiences here have a lasting and positive impact
on them, and on the world in which we live.

The truth about SeaWorld is right here in our parks and people. Our guests may enter
our gates having never given much thought to the remarkable animals in our oceans.
When they leave with a greater appreciation for the importance of the sea, educated
about the animals that live there and inspired to make a difference, we have done our
job.

25
How does the writer persuade the reader that keeping killer whales in
captivity is a good thing?

You should comment on:

 what they say to influence readers;

 their use of language and tone;

2) Things that the writer says (their points) to make us think it is a good thing (choose
up to four):
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2) Specific words or phrases which persuade you to agree that it is a good thing.
Why do they persuade you?
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28
On Saturday 15 April 1989, eight of us set off from Nottingham for Sheffield
under a beautiful blue sky. Liverpool were playing Nottingham Forest in an FA
Cup semi-final at Hillsborough, and our two cars - one carrying four Forest fans,
one four Liverpool fans - made short work of the motorway. We had made a
loose arrangement to meet up after the game (no mobiles back then), but when
our driver parked the car a mile or so from Hillsborough, we realised we'd come
in at the west end of the ground, behind the Leppings Lane stand - the Liverpool
end.

By 2.30pm it was getting strangely uncomfortable. Looking around, I could see

that fans older and clearly more seasoned than me were getting edgy. I
shrugged two people off my back and pushed my way under the crush barrier, so
that it was now behind me, and not on my chest. Ten minutes later, it would have
been too late. By then, 20 minutes before kick-off, the crowd around me was
wheezing and sweating and settling slowly, grudgingly, like cement. I had been in
tight crowds before, but this was different. A silence was falling over the
people around me. Some were hyperventilating, others were fainting. I was
starting to panic now, but I was stuck. The pressure was tightening like a vice.
My eyes began searching for police, or stewards, but no one was coming. Slowly,
my legs, my backside, my arms and finally my chest went numb. One ear was
folded in against my cheekbone by the head of a man to my right. I could move
my head, my eyes and my mouth, and no more. My right foot seemed to move
involuntarily, until I realised it wasn't on the ground but planted on the calf of a
man in front of me.

That crush barrier was a few feet to my right, but I didn't see it. Because the
light was slowly closing around my head. By now I was gasping for breath, and
worried that my neck wasn't moving freely. Within feet of me people were
standing dead, bolt upright. Three men had long stopped breathing and were now
staring, with a fixed, almost disinterested expression, into the distance. Their
faces were bleached white, but turning blue, their lips a cold violet. The only
comfort I could find was that thousands of people who were still alive were now
shouting for help, screaming, "There are people dead in here!" There were CCTV
cameras trained on us. And there were police just a few feet in front of the
fence who must have realised that metal crush barriers in our pen were bursting
out of the ground.

Unbelievably, at 3pm, the match kicked off. I remember the roar of the crowd
around the ground, and the stillness that followed in pen 3 as people gave up
screaming for help to save the air in their lungs. By this time my lungs were
burning and freezing with alternate breaths. I was paralysed from the neck
down. Rival chants were bouncing the length of the ground, and I thought of my

29
brother, watching from the opposite end of the stadium, where I should have
been. Two police officers were sharing a joke, nervously, on the cinder track,
10ft away. No one was coming to help.

It was then that I caught the eye of a policeman just the other side of the
fence. It was an unmistakable, meaningful moment: because for four or five
seconds, across the heads of scores of people, we looked each other in the eye.

I lost him when I mouthed the words, "Help us." He smiled to himself and shook
his head at me, and walked on, a little uncertainly.

At that point I thought: "We've been left to die." Many people already had.
People bigger than me, smaller than me, and smarter than me were gone. Now it
was my turn. Fifty seconds, my brain was telling me: you've got 50 seconds left.
I don't know where the figure came from, but there wasn't a moment of doubt
in my mind: just a calm, orderly voice telling me to hurry up and take in the final
minute of my life. As the seconds ticked down to 45, 40, 35, my lungs began to
falter. I screwed up every ounce of strength left in my body - to lever myself
into the air, climb on to someone's shoulders, escape. But as I heaved and
strained, my body wouldn't move an inch. Those pressed tight around me were
heavy, some were unconscious; others were gibbering, trying to black out what
was happening.

I counted down to 20 seconds, and then at 15, or 14, I gave up. At 10 seconds,
nine, eight, I floated away for a moment, briefly euphoric. Then I settled into
my body, opened my mouth towards the sky and sucked what I could out of it.
And then I closed my eyes. Five seconds later, they opened. The sky was still
blue. And the police had finally opened the gate in the fence and were swearing
at us. And I had survived.

How does the writer present his experience during the Hillsborough
disaster?

1) Select up to five quotations which show how terrible the writer’s

experience was:

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2) Now choose at least two of your quotations and explain why or how
they show that the writer’s experience was terrible:

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One of the most appalling and heartrending catastrophes that has ever
occurred in any country took place this morning in Hartley New Pit, near Seaton
Delaval. Over the mouth of the pit was the beam of a pumping engine, the
largest and most powerful in the North of England, the beam weighing about
forty tons. The men were being drawn up in the cage by means of the winding
machine when the beam of the engine broke and fell into the pit, meeting, in its
downward course, the ascending cage with its human cargo, the enormous mass
crushing everything in its way. Five were killed instantly, and three were
afterwards extricated alive.

The beam, it seemed, struck the top of the brattice with such violence that the
whole of the massive wooden and iron framework was hurled to the bottom of
the mine, thus cutting off all means of escape from the lower portion of the
mine, in which were 215 men and boys buried alive. As soon as the nature of the
accident became known, the pit mouth was soon crowded with noble fellows, who
at once volunteered to enter the mine, and render every assistance in their
power to rescue the living and recover the mangled remains of the dead. The
viewer, Charles Carr, esq., and his assistant, Mr. Humble, were soon on the
spot, along with Hugh Taylor, esq., of Backworth; T. E. Forster, esq.,
Newcastle; M. Dunn, esq., her majesty's inspector of mines ; Mr. Coulson, the
master sinker of North Seaton Colliery; and many other able and scientific men
connected with the coal trade. The shattered cage was, after herculean
exertions, brought up smashed and torn, as if it had been manufactured of the
weakest tin instead of the strongest wrought iron. The rims, about an inch
thick, were shivered as if they had been the thinnest of tissue paper. And now
commenced, in this district, six days of the most intense anxiety and harrowing
suspense.

Mr. Coulson and his heroic assistants laboured almost day and night in removing
the debris, so as to form a communication with the men in the pit. Imagination in
vain attempts to paint the scene which went on below: the agony of suspense
they must have endured, the torturing terrors of their dim and stifling gallery,
are all beyond conception; and then the pale, sorrowing watchers above, who
thought of neither night nor day, nor of cold nor of privations, while waiting in
dread anxiety for husbands, brothers, and children engulfed in that dark abyss.
At last, on the 22nd, an opening was made into the workings, and one of the
brave shift men, named William Adams, accompanied by two companions,
entered the mine. They went along till they came to the bodies of two of the
entombed men. Pushing their way along, at great danger to themselves, for the

32
air was very bad, they found more bodies strewn in all directions. In all the
ghastly company not one spark of precious life remained.

How does the writer present the Hartley Mining Disaster?

1) Select up to five quotations which show how terrible the disaster

was:

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2) Now choose at least two of your quotations and explain why or how
they show that the disaster was terrible:

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________________________________________________________________
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34
At least fifteen sticks of dynamite exploded in the basement of the 16th
Street Baptist Church as Sunday school classes were being held here today,
killing four black schoolgirls and injuring 23 other black people, some seriously.
Later, police shot dead a black youth after he threw stones at passing cars.
Another black boy, aged 13, was shot dead while riding a bicycle.

The church was the starting point in the summer for marches by black people in
protest against segregation. Today the inside of the building was a complete
chaos. The church clock stopped at 10.25 a.m. The pulpit was shattered. A
damaged cross lay among the rubble. Glass, some of it bloodstained, covered the
pews and the choir stalls.

The force of the explosion was such that concrete blocks were torn loose and
hurled outwards, windows were blown out of shops and houses nearby, and
several cars parked outside were destroyed.

In the unfinished Sunday school lesson this morning the children were reading
from the Gospel of St. Matthew: “But I say unto you, love your enemies.”
Tonight only one stained glass window in the church remained unbroken: it
showed Christ leading a group of little children.

One witness said he saw about sixty people stream out of the shattered church,
some bleeding. Others emerged from a hole in the wall. Across the street a
black woman stood weeping. She clasped a little girl’s shoe. “Her daughter was
killed,” a bystander said. Two of the dead schoolgirls were aged 14 and another
aged 11. One of the children was so badly mutilated that she could only be
identified by clothing and a ring.

Mr. M. W. Pippen stood outside his damaged dry cleaning shop opposite the
church. “My grand baby was one of those killed,” he said. “Eleven years old. I
helped pull the rubble off her… I feel like blowing up the whole town.”

Other people had lucky escapes. Miss Effie McCaw, a 75-year-old Sunday school
teacher, said she was taking a class of five children in the basement when the
explosion occurred. “I told them to lie down on the floor,” she said. “None of us
was hurt.”

35
How does the writer describe the explosion?

1) Select up to four quotations which describe the explosion effectively:

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2) Now explain how or why those quotations describe the explosion so

effectively. What images are created? How do they make you feel?

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